Odisha to Use Radio Collars to Keep Track of Wild Elephant Movement

Bhubaneswar: The Odisha forest department is planning to put radio collars on wild elephants to keep track movements of herds to reduce occurrences of elephant-human conflicts. Similar experiment has been successful in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

According to sources, the forest department of Odisha has entered into an agreement with the Asian Nature Conservation Foundation and the Institute of Physics for putting radio collars on wild elephants. It is expected that this project will be taken up in October this year.

Under the pilot project, three elephants will be tagged with radio collars in either Dhenkanal or Angul forest range. The radio collar will be fitted on the neck of the wild pachyderm.

Through the radio collar forest officials will get real-time information about the position of elephant herds to monitor their movement.

After the success of the pilot project, it will be extended to other parts of the state.